wish I had seen her--poor Justine! We were the greatest friends at
the convent. She was the ringleader in all our mischief--I never saw any
one so quick and clever. I suppose her fun is all gone now."

For a moment Mrs. Westmore's mind continued to linger among her
memories; then she reverted to the question of the Dillons, and of what
might best be done for them if Miss Brent's fears should be realized.

As the carriage neared her door she turned to her companion with
extended hand. "Thank you so much, Mr. Amherst. I am glad you suggested
that Mr. Truscomb should find some work for Dillon about the office. But
I must talk to you about this again--can you come in this evening?"

VII

AMHERST could never afterward regain a detailed impression of the weeks
that followed. They lived in his memory chiefly as exponents of the
unforeseen, nothing he had looked for having come to pass in the way or
at the time expected; while the whole movement of life was like the
noon-day flow of a river, in which the separate ripples of brightness
are all merged in one blinding glitter. His recurring conferences with
Mrs. Westmore formed, as it were, the small surprising kernel of fact
about which sensations gathered and grew with the swift ripening of a
magician's fruit. That she should remain on at Hanaford to look into the
condition of the mills did not, in itself, seem surprising to Amherst;
for his short phase of doubt had been succeeded by an abundant inflow of
faith in her intentions. It satisfied his inner craving for harmony that
her face and spirit should, after all, so corroborate and complete each
other; that it needed no moral sophistry to adjust her acts to her
appearance, her words to the promise of her smile. But her immediate
confidence in him, her resolve to support him in his avowed
insubordination, to ignore, with the royal license of her sex, all that
was irregular and inexpedient in asking his guidance while the whole
official strength of the company darkened the background with a
gathering storm of disapproval--this sense of being the glove flung by
her hand in the face of convention, quickened astonishingly the flow of
Amherst's sensations. It was as though a mountain-climber, braced to the
strain of a hard ascent, should suddenly see the way break into roses,
and level itself in a path for his feet.

On his second visit he found the two ladies together, and Mrs. Ansell's
smile of approval seemed to cast